Legislation that the government plans to submit to parliament shortly to enhance the countrys economic security will call for making some key patents closed to the public, among other measures, officials said.

The move is part of an effort to counter Chinas growing influence on technologies and supply chains.

The main targets of the concealment of patents are nuclear-related and other advanced technologies such as quantum cryptography, which enhances the security of data communications.

The bill will call on the government to examine the possibility of such technologies being converted for military use in foreign countries and limit the disclosure of patents relating to such technologies when necessary.

Usually, a patent is disclosed to the public 18 months after the application is filed. If a patent is closed to the public, the government will compensate for licensing fees that the patent holder would have earned.

Other pillars of the legislation include making Japans supply chains for strategically important goods more resilient, enhancing technological cooperation between the public and private sectors, and strengthening the countrys key infrastructure.

In the area of supply chains, the government will ensure that Japan procures domestically, or from friendly countries, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and raw materials that have become increasingly important due to the COVID-19 pandemic and progress in digitalization.

A think tank will be established as early as fiscal 2023 where the public and private sectors will work together to analyze information on the development of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum cryptography.

A plan is being considered to impose penalties for leaks of advanced technologies from the private sector.

The government will introduce a system to examine whether operators of important infrastructure such as telecommunications and financial networks pose economic security risks.

Amid tensions between the United States and China, Washington has asked allies and partners, including Japan, to cooperate in the procurement of strategically important materials and the protection of advanced technologies.

In addition to passing the legislation, Japan aims to develop technologies that no other country can imitate to raise its international influence.

Some businesses and ruling coalition lawmakers are concerned that stronger economic security could excessively restrict corporate activities. Economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi, who is in charge of the bill, said the government will listen carefully to opinions of industry and academic players.

In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

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Japan to conceal key patents to boost economic security - The Japan Times

Anthony Mastrofrancesco Funeral Home Inc.

Dolly (Fattore) Gratta

Aliquippa - Dolly (Fattore) Gratta, 95, of Aliquippa died on January 10, 2022. She was born on December 20, 1926, to the late Vincenzo and Jennie (Buccilli) Fattore.

In addition to her parents, she is preceded in death by her husband, Vincent Gratta, and her sister, Lillian Iannini.

Dolly took great pride in her work. She worked in Arlington Hall in Arlington Virginia. This was the headquarters of the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) Cryptography effort during World War II, which accomplished successful decipherment of the Japanese Army's cryptosystem.

Dolly is survived by her three children and their spouses, Glenn (Amy) Gratta, Lori (Mark) Piccolomini, and David Gratta. Three grandchildren, Sara Piccolomini, Gretchen Gratta, and Jessica (Mike) Stanczak. Dolly also leaves behind her puppy Maggie May Gratta.

A celebration of life will be held at a later date.

Arrangements were made with ANTHONY MASTROFRANCESCO FUNERAL HOME INC. 2026 McMinn Street Aliquippa PA 15001 724-683-2518.

Posted online on January 12, 2022

Published in The Beaver County Times

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Dolly (Fattore) Gratta Obituary - The Beaver County Times - The Times

Payments giant Visa has conducted a survey of small businesses and found that almost a quarter of those who responded plan to accept cryptocurrency payments this year. I think more people are feeling more confident with crypto, said a Visa executive.

Visa published a study on digital payments Wednesday. It was conducted by Wakefield Research in December 2021 and included a survey of 2,250 small business owners with 100 employees or fewer in Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Russia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and the U.S.

Visa described that a path forward for small and micro businesses (SMBs) in 2022 includes Going long on digital payments even crypto. The payments giant detailed:

Of those surveyed, 24% said they plan to accept digital currencies such as the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

The company elaborated: An overwhelming 82% of SMBs surveyed said they plan to accept some form of digital option in 2022 and 73% see accepting new forms of payments as fundamental to their business growth.

Jeni Mundy, Visas global head of merchant sales and acquiring, was quoted as saying:

I think more people are feeling more confident with crypto.

In December, Visa launched crypto advisory services. Moreover, Visas head of crypto recently revealed that the company has partnered with 60 cryptocurrency platforms to let consumers spend digital currency at 80 million merchants worldwide.

What do you think about this Visa survey? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Near Foundation Raises $150 Million to Bolster Web3 Adoption

On Thursday, the Near Foundation announced the project has raised $150 million from strategic investors such as Three-Arrows Capital, a16z, Mechanism Capital, Dragonfly Capital, and Circle Ventures. Following the announcement, the Near protocols native crypto asset jumped more than 7% ... read more.

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Visa: One in Four Businesses Surveyed Plan to Accept Cryptocurrency Payments This Year Featured Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

Cryptocurrencies have developed a great deal in markets and are adopted as the standard means of payment by quite a few companies. Bitcoin, the first kind of cryptocurrency to ever be introduced, is a decentralised system that makes transactions safe and effortless. It is known to rely on an underlying technology called blockchain to record transactions in a ledger rather than depending on any regulatory authority. It is an online-based transaction, with the sole motive of conducting the entire transaction on a virtual basis.

Bitcoins have served as an inspiration for all of the succeeding cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Cardano, and many more. So, if you want to learn more about the security features of Bitcoin, click here and make the most of it.

In this article, we will help you learn about how bitcoins manage to be safe. So, keep reading to know more about it. You wont be disappointed.

Reasons To State Why Bitcoins Are Safe

Since Bitcoin is built on a secure, underlying technology known as the blockchain, it is safe. Also, due to its decentralised, public and cryptographic nature, it is said to be under no ones control, and therefore, proper security is maintained.

In this article, we have stated several reasons why Bitcoins are regarded as one of the safest means of payment through financial systems. So, read it thoroughly and gain immense knowledge of why people should opt for Bitcoin.

1.Bitcoin Makes Use Of Cryptography

Since Bitcoin is backed up by a special technological instrument known as the blockchain, it is secure. This is because blockchain is a well-improved, underlying technology that solely depends on safe concepts and secure cryptography. Since blockchain uses many volunteers for signing hashes that promote transactions using cryptography, the transactions become irreversible. This results in building up stronger security of data.

Bitcoin is known to comprise many nodes due to its wide distribution network. This ensures that if any mishappening occurs to even one of these nodes, the others can compensate for it. This also proves that it would be pointless and a waste of time if one tries to hack into servers. Unless you can hack into 51 nodes at once, which is almost impossible, no one can damage the servers.

Since Bitcoin is completely public and decentralised, there is absolutely no need for permission from the outside world. Since it does not have any superior authority to control it, this denotes that anyone can access it.

The Bottom Line

If you want to learn more about Bitcoin and its tremendous uses for conducting smooth transactions, make sure to click here and be filled with the required information. This article has provided some security features to state why you do not have to worry about anything while opting for Bitcoins. So, what are you waiting for? Opt for Bitcoin as a means of payment for transactions and make the most of it.

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Security features of bitcoin to know - Daily News Hungary

Bitcoins success as a decentralized digital currency inspired the adoption of blockchain technology across the world. Over the years, blockchain has proved to have transformative potential, replacing centrally controlled systems with decentralized, community-run alternatives. When Ethereum introduced smart contracts, it helped make possible the creation of a global settlement layer managed and regulated by its own users.

The final set piece to enable developers to build out censorship-resistant Web3 experiences completely on-chain is a world computer a concept that first emerged in the early Ethereum community. DFINITY Founder and Chief Scientist Dominic Williams assembled over 200 world-renowned cryptographers, distributed systems engineers, and programming language experts from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, et al. to tackle the massive challenge of building the Internet Computer, a world computer powerful enough to support infinitely scalable Web3 dapps.

But a network managed by thousands of people running millions of nodes across the globe comes with potential challenges, particularly regarding scalability the measure of the number of updastes or transactions that a network can handle per second (TPS). Crypto dogma dedicates the more decentralized a network is, the lower its scalability and TPS. Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two most popular blockchains, have a speed of about 5 and 13 TPS respectively. When the demand for transactions exceeds their capacity, the performance of these networks suffers, creating a backlog and leading to problems like network congestion and high transaction costs (aka gas fees).

Scalability issues have long stood in the way of blockchains widespread adoption, preventing it from providing optimal solutions to businesses and industries worldwide, and ultimately, leaving the cypherpunk vision of a world computer just out of reach. The DFINITY Foundation recognized that a blockchain network needs to run at internet scale and web speed to take this revolutionary technology mainstream which is why DFINITY developed novel cryptography and computer science to build and launch the Internet Computer, delivering on the vision of a decentralized world computer.

The Internet Computer is the ultimate original layer-1 blockchain that developers around the world can use to build infinitely scalable dapps, DeFi, social media, enterprise systems, NFTs, and web-based services. Canister smart contracts are capable of receiving and responding to HTTP requests and processing data at the speed that users expect when using the web.

Smart contract executions are divided between update calls, which modify state, and query calls, which are read-only requests. Update calls are processed on every node in a given subnetwork, while queries are processed on one node. A recent Internet Computer performance evaluation tested all subnets concurrently except the NNS by targeting their nodes with an incrementally increasing load, demonstrating a throughput of 11,000 update calls/transactions per second over 4 minutes, with peaks of 11,500 and finality of 1 second on dapp subnets. The throughput for query calls stood at 250,000 per second, with completion within 200 milliseconds.

These numbers are particularly significant in comparison to Solanas measurement of 1,000 TPS, which was until recently considered a benchmark in blockchain performance.

As a result, everything from DeFi systems and dapps to online games and tokenized social media running on the Internet Computer can operate at web speed and offer unprecedented scalability. It provides developers with powerful software frameworks to reimagine and rebuild the worlds systems and services on the blockchain.

The Internet Computer Protocol is running on standardized node hardware in independent data centers around the world. The Network Nervous System, the open, permissionless on-chain governance system, scales the network by combining nodes from different data centers to spin up new subnet blockchains.

The Internet Computers partitioning into subnet blockchains is what allows the network to infinitely scale. Each subnet blockchain is capable of processing update and query calls independently from other subnets. This means that the entire network can easily be scaled by simply adding more subnets to the network. For update calls that need to be processed on every node, this method of scaling the network can ensure that more update calls are processed per second. The Internet Computer is capable of adding hundreds of new subnets via the NNS.

For query calls, however, scalability can simply be achieved by adding more nodes to a subnet because these calls are processed locally on one node. The network is capable of adding thousands of new nodes in its current state. The addition of more nodes and subnets to the network ensures web speed and infinite scalability.

The Internet Computers novel consensus mechanism also plays a key role in the networks ability to scale. Internet Computer Consensus (ICC) consists of four different layers that create candidate blocks, identify valid blocks, rank block makers, and then finalize the agreed upon blocks. The blockchains asynchronous finalization mechanism is impressively fast, ensuring that the finality for new blocks is achieved in under two seconds on average on the NNS subnet, and 1 second on dapp subnets.

This contributes to the Internet Computers resilience. Additionally, unlike legacy blockchains, the Internet Computer has no nodes hosted by cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Cloudflare, helping ensure that the network is tamper-proof, secure, and stable.

The advanced scalability of the Internet Computer signals a new era in the development of decentralized apps and systems that are capable of supporting tens of millions of users, substantially reducing the costs associated with blockchain transactions and making blockchain-based services feasible for mainstream adoption.____

Excerpt from:
Built for Scalability: How the Internet Computer Allows Web3 Dapps to Infinitely Scale - Medium

Global investment bank JPMorgan has asked its clients what they think the price of bitcoin will be by year-end. Among the banks clients who responded, 55% expect the price of bitcoin to end the year at $60K or higher.

JPMorgan has conducted a survey of its clients about what they expect the price of bitcoin to be by year-end. The global investment bank released the results earlier this week. The survey was conducted between Dec. 13 and Jan. 7 as part of a broader macroeconomic outlook for 2022. Forty-seven of JPMorgans clients participated in the survey.

About 41% of the banks clients who responded expect bitcoin to end the year at around $60,000. 23% expect the price to be $20,000 while 20% expect it to be $40,000.

In addition, 9% believe that the price of BTC will reach $80,000, 5% think that it could be $100,000 or more, while 2% expect it to fall to $10,000 or lower.

Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, a JPMorgan strategist and an author of the research note that included the survey, commented:

Im not surprised by bitcoins bearishness Our bitcoin-position indicator based on bitcoin futures looks oversold.

He added that the cryptocurrencys fair value is between $35,000-$73,000, depending on what investors assume about its volatility ratio compared to gold.

At the time of writing, the price of bitcoin is $43,291 based on data from Bitcoin.com Markets.

Recently, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, predicted that the price of bitcoin will reach $100,000 by the end of the year. Global investment bank Goldman Sachs also sees the $100,000 level for BTC as a possibility. Crypto lending platform Nexo, however, expects the price of BTC to hit $100K by the middle of this year.

What is your bitcoin price prediction? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Near Foundation Raises $150 Million to Bolster Web3 Adoption

On Thursday, the Near Foundation announced the project has raised $150 million from strategic investors such as Three-Arrows Capital, a16z, Mechanism Capital, Dragonfly Capital, and Circle Ventures. Following the announcement, the Near protocols native crypto asset jumped more than 7% ... read more.

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JPMorgan Client Survey: Majority Expect Bitcoin Price to Reach $60K or More This Year Featured Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

North Korean hackers stole cryptocurrency worth about $400 million last year in at least seven major attacks on crypto platforms. Only 20% of the stolen funds were bitcoin And for the first time ever, ether accounted for a majority of the funds stolen at 58%, said blockchain data analytics firm Chainalysis.

Blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis published an analysis on North Korean hackers and their unlaundered cryptocurrency holdings Thursday. The firm described:

North Korean cybercriminals had a banner year in 2021, launching at least seven attacks on cryptocurrency platforms that extracted nearly $400 million worth of digital assets last year.

These attacks targeted primarily investment firms and centralized exchanges, the firm explained.

The hackers made use of phishing lures, code exploits, malware, and advanced social engineering to siphon funds from companies hot wallets into the addresses controlled by the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), Chainalysis added, elaborating:

Once North Korea gained custody of the funds, they began a careful laundering process to cover up and cash out.

Chainalysis noted that In 2021, North Korean hacking activity was on the rise once again. From 2020 to 2021, the number of North Korean-linked hacks jumped from four to seven, and the value extracted from these hacks grew by 40%.

The firm also detailed that bitcoin now accounts for less than one-fourth of the cryptocurrencies stolen by North Korea, adding:

In 2021, only 20% of the stolen funds were bitcoin, whereas 22% were either ERC-20 tokens or altcoins. And for the first time ever, ether accounted for a majority of the funds stolen at 58%.

More than 65% of DPRKs stolen funds were laundered through mixers this year, up from 42% in 2020 and 21% in 2019, suggesting that these threat actors have taken a more cautious approach with each passing year, the firm concluded.

What do you think about North Korea launching attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges and stealing $400 million worth of crypto last year? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Near Foundation Raises $150 Million to Bolster Web3 Adoption

On Thursday, the Near Foundation announced the project has raised $150 million from strategic investors such as Three-Arrows Capital, a16z, Mechanism Capital, Dragonfly Capital, and Circle Ventures. Following the announcement, the Near protocols native crypto asset jumped more than 7% ... read more.

Read the rest here:
North Korean Hackers Stole $400 Million in Cryptocurrency Last Year Ether Accounts for 58% of Stolen Funds News Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

Among the many paths one can take in their life, working in emerging technologies is possibly one of the riskiest yet most rewarding paths one can aim for. One such example is being a blockchain entrepreneur where you can take advantage of the rising traction that cryptocurrency has been gaining over the years.

For the unfamiliar, blockchain is a system of recording that is shared between computers. The recordings are stored in digital format and in such a way where modifying or hacking is extremely difficult if not impossible. This system plays an essential role for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to maintain security and records between transactions.

Becoming a blockchain innovator isnt an easy path, nor is it cheap. With the rising costs of education in the U.S system, the price of attending a high-quality university steadily increases each year. Attending school, let alone a prestigious university with no clear source of income is extremely challenging and is a burden for students instead of a privilege one can enjoy.

If weve caught your interest with becoming a blockchain innovator or if you already have an interest or knowledge in the field, Adam Tracy, a seasoned advisor and entrepreneur with many years of experience with blockchain technology, has you covered with the scholarship he is offering.

The Adam Tracy Blockchain Scholarship aims to foster greater understanding through advanced education for the next generation of blockchain innovators. Through his scholarship, he seeks to identify promising candidates and award three scholarships with the amount of $1,000. Each scholarship amount is awarded to each blockchain-related discipline which is as follows: cryptography, entrepreneurship and development.

The requirements needed to be one of the potential candidates for it are really simple. Firstly, you have to be a college student or a high school senior who has been enrolled or accepted into a four-year program at a U.S accredited university. Furthermore, as this scholarship is aimed towards fostering the future generation of blockchain innovators, you must show interest in the field by demonstrating your knowledge of blockchain, entrepreneurship or science and STEM.

To demonstrate this, a 1,000 word written essay about tackling blockchain technology and its impact in the future will become part of the requirements for the scholarship. Additionally, the scholarship is open to everyone as they only have to be U.S residents, U.S citizens or international students to become eligible to apply as long as they fulfilled all the previous requirements. To find all of the information regarding the scholarship, visit the official Adam Tracy Scholarship website.

Name: Adam Tracy

Website: https://adamtracyscholarship.com

Media ContactContact Person: Adam TracyEmail: Send EmailPhone: 5619265281Country: United StatesWebsite: https://adamtracyscholarship.com

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The Adam Tracy Scholarship for Blockchain Innovators: Fostering Great Minds and Innovators of the Future - Digital Journal

The blockchain world is seeing a trend recently of networks rolling out big time upgrades. As the number of total users of blockchain continues to rise, these networks naturally want to get as much of the market share as possible. Thus, networks are making big shows out of their upgrades, lauding green technology, high scalability, low fees and other important factors a user will consider when looking into a platform.Litecoin (CCC:LTC-USD) is among the many networks undergoing big changes, thanks to its MimbleWimble upgrade. After much anticipation, it seems like Litecoin could finally be seeing the new protocol hitting its network. Investors are seeking out Litecoin price predictions to see if analysts believe the upgrade to be a significant catalyst.

Source: Shutterstock

MimbleWimble isnt a technology thats native to the Litecoin protocol. Rather, its something thats been around for some time now, underlying a multitude of other blockchain projects. MimbleWimble is a protocol that emphasizes privacy with its own brand of cryptography. Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) allows a network to verify transactions and their parties without ever having to publicly record the data.

Indeed, by implementing MimbleWimble to its network, Litecoin will be able to make transactions highly privatized. Users transactions will no longer be traceable to a specific wallet address. The currency itself will become fungible. Of course, these are both draws to networks hyper-fixated on privacy, likeMonero (CCC:XMR-USD). As such, Litecoin will become a fierce competitor alongside these other networks.

Litecoin has been teasing the addition of the MimbleWimble protocol to its network for some time now. First announced in November of last year, the network is not giving a set date for the release of the upgrade. However, speculation is abounding that the rollout could be just a couple of weeks from now.

In December, some Litecoin developers expected the rollout to occur in January. Now, representatives from the Litecoin Foundation are saying that the upgrade is in its final rounds of review before it will go live.

Investors expect this rollout to be a catalyst for LTC gains. As such, interest in Litecoin price predictions is heating back up. Lets take a look at some analysts predictions for Litecoins 2022:

On the date of publication, Brenden Rearickdid not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.

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Litecoin Price Predictions: Where Will Incoming MimbleWimble Upgrade Take LTC? - InvestorPlace